Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, which already has one of the busiest music venues in the world with its Sands Bethlehem Event Center, and offers nightclub performers in its Molton Lounge, will soon offer a new type of entertainment: For children.

When Sands Bethlehem Event Center was being built nearly two years ago, its organizers already were thinking about what lay beyond.

They were figuring how entertainment could be delivered to far more people than the center’s capacity of 3,500. And how that would let the center compete for top entertainers.

Sands Bethlehem Event Center partner Jeff Trainer at the facility

So they wired the center to allow state-of-the-art, professional-quality recording of every event — be it a concert, boxing match or stage production.

Now, 16 months after the event center at the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem opened, it will stream its first pay-per-view event with the potential to reach 80 million viewers in 150 countries on the Internet.

On Thursday, the event center will offer “Legends of Boxing,” a live, seven-fight card topped by welterweights Ronald Cruz and Alberto Morales, with commentary and interviews by former champs such as Larry Holmes, via the video streaming service Ustream.

The program, which will cost $4.99 to tap, will be beamed through Universal Streaming Network, a company the event center’s partners created and put on the Ustream framework.

Event center officials hope it will be the start of aggressive pay-per-view programming that makes the venue the first worldwide to routinely stream its shows.

Read more about the plan and what it means for the event center in Pay Per View Payday, a story in The Morning Call today.

Aaron Lewis, front man for alt-rockers Staind and now a chart-topping solo country singer, also is an avid outdoorsman who couldn’t resist the urge to spend the day hunting between shows this weekend in The Poconos.

Aaron Lewis in camo cap onstage at Mount Airy on SaturdayPhoto by Brian Hineline/Special to The Morning Call

Between his Friday night and Saturday night shows at Mount Airy casino resort in Mount Pocono, Lewis went bow hunting. Was he successful?

Longtime Philadelphia rock radio station WYSP-FM 94.1 will switch to an all talk/sports format Sept. 6, and all this week it’s paying homage to its 40-year history by giving on-air personnel from all eras come back on this week – including an Allentown native.

Denny Somach, a Moravian College graduate, was part of the station on the air and as music director from 1975-81, and will return to the air from 5 to 7 p.m. today.

Denny Somach

“It will be a real ‘blast from the past,’ " Somach said in an e-mail. “Surprise guests will be calling in.”

On its website, WYSP says the guest hosts will be on at 8 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. daily through Labor Day, “but be sure you’re listening all the time as there’s no telling who will show up and when to help us say goodbye.”

Jackie “The Joke Man’ Martling from The Howard Stern Show 1983-2001 kicked off the guest appearances Monday, followed by Tommy Conwell and Greaseman.

It was announced earlier this month the station will merge with WIP-AM, 610 Philadelphia sports talk to become WIP-FM 94.1 starting Sept. 6. It will be simulcast on 610-AM.

Somach, now of Havertown, runs Denny Somach Productions, a company that has produced syndicated and network radio programming. He also deals in collectible entertainment memorabilia.

Somach graduated from Moravian in 1975 and quickly built a career in the music industry. In addition to working for WYSP, he has developed and supervised many television productions including “Friday Night Videos” for NBC and Evening/PM Magazine and the Rock'n' Roll Show for KYW-TV. He has also been a consultant to cable television networks.

He also has written town books about The Beatles: "Ticket to Ride" in 1989 and "The Beatles Again" in 1995.

The Philadelphia Eagles’ Michael Vick, Nnamdi Asomugha , Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and the rest of this year’s Eagles team are just like Taylor Swift.

Hey, don’t get mad at me for that comparison. Blame the Eagles’ publicists, who today sent out an e-mail saying that.

Michael Vick: He's just like Taylor Swift (below)

OK, here’s the context: The Eagles were crowing that single-game tickets for the 2011 season sold out in less than an hour Tuesday.

That, the release said, put those players “in the same league as” Swift, who, it said, “also sold out Lincoln Financial Field in a matter of minutes.”

“We’re happy to see the demand for Eagles football is healthy and strong,” team president Joe Banner was quoted as saying in the e-mail.

“Season ticket renewals, waiting list applications and single game sales show that Philly fans are ready for some football. And we’re highly motivated to deliver our fans a great season on the field.”

But there are a couple of things wrong with the comparison.

First of all, Swift — who plays the Linc on Saturday in one of only seven stadium performances the Berks County native will play in the United States on this tour — says she sold out the Linc in five minutes when tickets went on sale way back on Jan. 21.

But the truth is, there were no fewer than four “pre-sales” for Swift’s concert that gave ticket-buying privileges to a membership only slightly more exclusive than the membership of people have eaten at McDonald’s.

The truth is that Swift’s tickets were on sale for five days.

The Eagles’ publicists sold their team short.

In fairness, the release also compared the Eagles to U2, which it said also sold out its July 14 show in minutes.

But it probably would have been better if the Eagles had at least compared themselves with Kenny Chesney, a country singer who sold out The Linc in June and whose personae is a little more in line with the manly image you’d think the Eagles would want to portray.

I know I’d rather have someone compare me with a singer who had the hits “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” and “Beer in Mexico” than “Teardrops on My Guitar” and “Today Was a Fairy Tale.”

JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.